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The Food and Drug Administration are proposing the first federal regulations on electronic cigarettes, which would ban sales to anyone under 18 and require makers to gain FDA approval for their products. Photo: Getty Images

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Cigarettes continue to kill a half-million Americans every year while holding 100-fold that number in addiction’s deadly grasp. Yet a perverse crusade has spread like a contagion across the nation — to ban or restrict access to electronic cigarettes (e-cigs), which have harmed no one and allowed many to quit smoking.

Now that anti-science fervor has spread to the state Legislature, where three separate bills would combine to condemn desperate addicted smokers to lingering death.

It’s a bizarre “through the looking glass” situation — banning e-cigs even as cigarettes, the most lethal nicotine-delivery system, are marketed as they’ve been for decades.

Shortly after the Food and Drug Administration got authority over tobacco products in 2009, the agency decided that e-cigs were in fact unapproved cessation medication and moved to ban them, going so far as to intercept imports from China. Legal action by several e-cig marketers resulted in a slapdown from a federal judge, who agreed with the companies that e-cigs were not medicinals and forbade the FDA from barring their entry.

Since then, official statements from all the federal “public health” agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control, have uniformly warned desperate smokers not to even try e-cigs to help them quit.

The FDA just announced rules that, while overly restrictive (e.g., they don’t let companies state the clear truth that e-cigs are much safer than regular cigarettes), won’t go far enough for the zealots. So you can expect a continued push in the Legislature for a total or partial ban — despite the facts.

Most smokers want to quit, and over half try each year. They mostly fail, however: The FDA-approved cessation aids “succeed” about once in 10 tries, barely better than quitting cold turkey.

Millions of ex-smokers have figured this out, despite the official warnings: E-cig sales are skyrocketing while cigarettes are in historic declines. These ex-smokers have become “vapers”: instead of smoking, they are “vaping” e-cigs.

Why do e-cigs help smokers quit when the patches, gums and drugs fail? A combination of factors: The nicotine dose is sufficient to satisfy that powerful craving, and use of the e-cig reflects the rituals of smoking — the hand-to-mouth motions, the glowing LED tip and the inhaled and exhaled plume or mist. Many also prefer flavored vapes.

None of these factors are to be found in the approved products, which are (by the way) much more expensive than e-cigs.

Another attraction for smokers is the relatively low cost of e-cigs, compared to cigarettes (and compared to the nicotine patches so beloved of the FDA and other federal agencies).

But one New York bill would institute an exorbitant tax on e-cigs, which have previously not been targeted with tobacco-like excise taxes. The tax would actually make e-cigs as expensive as the real, deadly cigarettes. This seems like the opposite of a public-health measure to me.

Moreover, their anticipated revenue windfall will not materialize, as vapers will simply get their e-cigs via the Internet or from out of state.

One of the most bogus concerns is that e-cigs will be a “gateway” to nicotine addiction and smoking. The data suggest just the opposite: Teen smoking rates have fallen significantly in recent years, even as e-cig use has soared.

Banning vaping as though it was smoking due to “second-hand vapor” is ridiculous on its face: Vapor is mostly water, and the chemicals in it are in such low concentrations (as confirmed in academic analysis) so as not to be a threat to anyone.

The politicians seeking to ban and tax e-cigs say “it’s in the interests of public health.” In fact, such measures are antithetical to public health, and would protect cigarette markets by reducing access to a successful quit-smoking method. If these bills become law, they’ll simply be a death sentence for smokers who just want to quit.

Dr. Gilbert Ross is is executive and medical director at the American Council on Science and Health.